In a spontaneous moment of inspiration I decided to have a competition for my classes. There is a classroom management practice from Uncommon Schools (a charter school group) called 100%. It boils down to this: 100% of the time 100% of the students are on task and engaged in the lesson. I decided to try to implement the 100% idea with my "les pieds contre le gris" flip form procedure. Periodically in each class I did a flip form check, if 100% of the students had their feet against the gray part of the flip forms, sitting up straight and quiet, the class earned a star on the board. For a 50 minute class period some of the classes only earned 3-4 stars. But (drumroll please...) on Thursday my most challenging class of all earned 5 stars and on Friday another challenging class earned 6 stars! I have found one of the keys to good behavior for some of my classes-competition! It is not very surprising considering our American culture is highly competitive. I told both winning classes that next week I will give them a surprise in music class. They were so thrilled that they won! I can't wait to give them their surprises too. I have to fork out a bit of cash (~$25) but it is worth every penny to have two of my most challenging classes competing to be good.
The kindergarten classes are learning about the planetary system this quarter so I played for them the BBC Philharmonica orchestra youtube videos of Gustav Holst's The Planets. Each class loved hearing the differences in each movement and several of the boys piped up to say that Mars sounded like Star Wars! They all asked to hear and see more of the music next week. This is one of the reasons why I do what I do.
Holst: Mars http://youtu.be/AGGlL1wexQk
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